1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a developer supply container useable in a copying machine, a printer or the like and an image forming apparatus capable of mounting the container thereon.
2. Related Background Art
As an image forming apparatus for forming an image on a recording medium using, for example, an electrophotographic image forming process as a recording technology, a copying machine, a printer (a laser beam printer, an LED printer or the like), a facsimile machine, a wordprocessor and the like have been proposed. Conventionally, fine powder toner has been used as a developer for such an image forming apparatus. When toner is consumed, a developer supply container is used to supply toner to a developing device.
Here, since toner is an extremely fine powder, it is necessary to configure an image forming apparatus such that toner does not scatter during operations for supplying toner. Thus, there is known a process of installing a developer supply container in the apparatus and discharging toner little-by-little from an outlet or a small opening provided in the developer supply container to a supply port of a developing device. In discharging toner in this way, since it is difficult for toner to be discharged automatically by the force of gravity, some toner feeding means is necessary.
Such a process is capable of supplying toner just enough and maintaining an amount of toner constant in a developing device. It is also effective, in particular, for maintaining a ratio of mixing a carrier component and a toner component always at a constant level if a two-component developer is used.
As described above, a so-called stationary developer supply container is effective for stabilizing levels of a discharge amount of toner and a ratio of mixing a carrier component and a toner component in a two-component developer. However, as a quality of an image has been getting higher in an electrophotographic image forming apparatus in recent years, there are more serious needs for stabilizing the level of the mixing ratio.
In order to stabilize the levels of the discharge amount and the mixing ratio, it is important to realize how to stabilize an amount of toner discharged from the outlet from the time when the developer supply container is sufficiently filled with a developer to the time when the developer supply container becomes almost empty.
In addition, since toner is a fine powder, it is necessary to seal a combining part between containers such that the toner does not leak. However, it is almost impossible to perfectly prevent the toner from leaking out of the combining part due to an effect of vibration or the like at the time when a container is attached or detached no matter how the combined part is sealed. Thus, it is desirable to reduce the number of parts requiring sealing, such as a combining part between containers, as much as possible.
The present invention has been devised in view of the above problems, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a developer supply container that always supply a stabilized amount of a developer and an image forming apparatus capable of mounting the container thereon.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a developer supply container capable of reducing sealing parts and an image forming apparatus capable of mounting the container thereon.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a developer supply container that includes:
a containing chamber for containing a developer;
a first feeding member, which is provided in the containing chamber and which feeds the developer to an outlet of the containing chamber;
a feeding chamber communicating with the containing chamber;
a second feeding member, which is provided in the feeding chamber and which feeds the developer coming from the containing chamber to an outlet of the container;
a partition member for partitioning said developer supply container into said containing chamber and said feeding chamber,
wherein a partitioning area of said partition member is much larger than an area of said outlet of said containing chamber.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an image forming apparatus that includes:
developing means for developing a latent image formed on an image bearing member; and
a developer supply container for supplying developer to the developing means, the developer supply container being detachably mountable to the image forming apparatus, wherein the developer container includes:
a containing chamber for containing a developer;
a first feeding member, which is provided in the containing chamber and which feeds the developer to an outlet of the containing chamber;
a feeding chamber communicating with the containing chamber;
a second feeding member, which is provided in the feeding chamber and which feeds the developer coming from the containing chamber to an outlet of the container;
a partition member for partitioning said developer supply container into said containing chamber and said feeding chamber,
wherein a partitioning area of said partition member is much larger than an area of said outlet of said containing chamber.
Other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference characters designate the same or similar parts throughout the figures thereof.